up to him that I'd row across to Jimmy's house and see if he
was asleep.

"Asleep!" that's just the way he shouted. "Do bridgeman sleep on full
tide up this way? Don't he know the harbor and waterway laws? I'll make
it hot for 'im--I will." And then he began pulling the whistle faster
and faster.

"Somebody must have been feeding him meat," Westy whispered to me.

"He's good and mad, that's sure," I said. Even while we rowed across to
Jimmy's shanty I could hear him shouting between the whistlings and
saying he'd have the bridgeman up for deserting on flood tide and putting
him in the mud. And jiminy, I have to admit that he was up against it,
because the tide was running down and by the time he got up to North
Bridgeboro and back, it would maybe be too low in the channel. One thing,
Jimmy had a right to be there, especially at flood tide, I knew that. But
I guess the reason he wasn't was because nothing but little motor boats
ever came up our river and they can always crawl under.

Jimmy lives all by himself on account of being old and his people are all
dead. I said to Westy that maybe he was just asleep, so we knocked and
knocked, but nobody came to the door. Then I knew he wasn't there at all
or else maybe he was dead.

"Anyway, we'd better find out," I said, "because it's mighty funny him
not being there, seeing that he never goes away anywhere."

All the time we could hear that old grouch shouting about Bridgeboro and
our river and saying it was Sleepy Hollow and Dopeville, and the river
was a mud hole. But it isn't and don't you believe it.

"Anyway, I'm going to climb in through the shed window," I said, "and
see if maybe Jimmy is sick or dead." I could see that Pee-wee was not
exactly scared but sort of anxious, and I was too, I have to admit it.

Westy and I got the shed window open, all right, because Jimmy wasn't
careful about it, on account of not having anything worth stealing, I
suppose. I was kind of shaky when we went into the first room, because
that was where he slept and I thought maybe he'd be lying there dead.

But he wasn't there at all. Just the same we stood there looking at each
other, and we were both kind of nervous, because Jimmy's clothes were
lying all around on the bed and on the floor, and a chair was knocked
over, and it looked just as if somebody had been rummaging in the room
in a big hurry. The door into the other room was closed and, I have to
admit, I didn't feel like open